Abstract

Few European enterprises in the history of the New World discovery rival Martin Frobisher's (1576-1578) exploits in search of the Northwest Passage. For three summers Frobisher led expeditions into the Canadian Arctic, first seeking a route to Cathay and when that eluded him, mining tons of black ore for gold. Frobisher's mining enterprises resulted in the implantation of the earliest industrial English establishment in the New World. This presentation highlights the archaeological potentiel of Frobisher's base camp on Kodlunarn Island. It discusses the results of the 1990 survey of the Island, limited testing of the assay office, the smithy, the ship trench and the material recovered from the eroding bank in front of the site. This preliminary archaeological reconnaissance provides us with architectural, artifactual and archaeometric data which will help in answering a host of anthropological and historical questions related to technological aspects of the Frobisher endeavour and left unexplained in the previous literature.